Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton are tied for the season finale of Formula 1. The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is perhaps the most exciting finale in the history of the racing series. Follow the decisive Grand Prix here in the live ticker.
Round 38/58: The Virtual Safety Car ends. the Hamilton lead amounts to 17 seconds, 20 laps are still to go. Is that enough for Catching up? On average, Verstappen should do just under 0.8 seconds per lap – and then overtake.
Round 37/58: Hamilton stays outside Verstappen comes to Tire change pure. The way is too far for softs, that’s why there is new hard tires. And the chance to attack Hamilton one more time on 23 laps of younger tires.
Round 36/58: The second Alfa Romeo also had to give up: Antonio Giovinazzi should “no longer shift gears” and parked the car. However, in such a way that the bolide is a little unhappy. The Virtual Safety Car is used.
Round 33/58: Mercedes is preparing for eventualities – which tire Hamilton would like to have if the safety car has to go out and there is the chance of an additional stop. “Medium or hard is the question, the answer of the leader:“ They both feel good. ”The lead has now increased again to 5.5 seconds.
Round 27/58: A very bitter end for Kimi Raikkonen’s career. The brakes are over, the 2007 world champion barely avoids hitting the track, but then has to park the Alfa Romeo in the pits. The 349th and final race ended early, 20 years after his debut for Sauber, Raikkonen is leaving for the last time.
Round 26/58: Mercedes boss Wolff asks the race management whether there will be a “warning about dangerous driving” for the tough defense of Pérez. The clear answer: “This is racing.”
Round 21/58: “Checo is a legend”, is glad Verstappen over the radio, because in the shadow of the Pérez / Verstappen duel, the championship leader has clearly caught up and is now only 1.8 seconds behind Hamilton.
Round 20/58: Tough duel between Pérez and Hamilton! The Mercedes driver goes past with DRS, but Pérez counters. On the next straight, Hamilton was briefly ahead again, the Mexican countered a second time. and Hamilton is losing a lot of time.
Round 18/58: At the end of the first long DRS straight, Verstappen finally overtook Sainz and is now directly behind Hamilton again. However, he was able to increase the lead from 5 to 8.5 seconds. In the lead is Sergio Pérez in the second Red Bull, who should stop Hamilton as much as possible on degrading red tires. So that Verstappen can close the gap.
Round 14/58: Verstappen pits after previously complaining about diminishing tires and is fourth after that. Hamilton reacts, also comes to the tire change and is second after that. There are just under five seconds between the championship rivals and Carlos Sainz in the Ferrari. If it stays that way, Hamilton will be world champion for the eighth time when it crosses the finish line.
Round 12/58: Hamilton can break away, is now 5.5 seconds ahead of Verstappen.
Round 8/58: Christian Horner live on the Sky microphone. “We are shocked” by the decision, says the Red Bull team boss, that Hamilton’s maneuver will not be investigated and therefore not punished. Which doesn’t change the fact that Verstappen simply and clearly lost the start. And yesterday he braked himself on yellow tires and therefore had to drive off on the more short-lived red tires.
Round 6/58: It’s going perfectly for Hamilton. He is leading ahead of Verstappen and also has a tire on the car that should last longer. The German pilots also made up one place each: Sebastian Vettel is 14th, Mick Schumacher 18.
Round 3/58: Red Bull radioed the race management that Hamilton had gained an unfair advantage, but the race management waves it away. “That’s unbelievable,” says Verstappen when his team tells him about it. But if Hamilton hadn’t opened the steering, it would have crashed.
Round 1/58: At the end of the long back straight it almost crashes between the leader Hamilton and the second Verstappen! The Dutchman stabs inside, brakes extremely late – Hamilton evades the impending collision, takes the detour via the run-off zone and still drives back on the track in first place. The race management decides: everything is legal, no investigation. Hamilton’s leadership remains.
Start: This works PERFECTLY FOR HAMILTON. The Mercedes driver got off to a better start and took the lead on the inside on the way to the first corner.
2:01 pm: Formation lap. The five red lights will come on soon – and when they go out, the hunt for the world championship is on. Verstappen for the first or Hamilton for the eighth?
1:58 pm: “How many replacement headsets do you have in the box?” Asks Sky expert Timo Glock at Mercedes boss Wolff. He had thrown his angry away in Saudi Arabia when Verstappen caused Hamilton to drive up. The Austrian’s usual eloquent answer: “That was not my finest moment”, but there was definitely a supply. Whereby the hope is certain that we will not have to experience something like that again today.
1:53 p.m .: All 19 cars have rolled into the starting grid, the mechanics are taking care of the final preparations and are immediately putting their things together. Then it’s time to warm up for the grand finale of this exciting season. Because despite all the admiration, the Mercedes superiority of the past few years was sometimes boring.
1:45 pm: Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko sees that (see 1:28 p.m.) naturally more relaxed: “As soon as Max’s tire collapses, we’ll just switch.” The opinionated Austrian also has to admit that it “would have been better if we had had a choice”. However, Verstappen had braked himself on the only fresh yellow set of tires in qualifying and thus made it unusable.
1:37 pm: Incidentally, race director Michael Masi has already warned the drivers not to come up with stupid ideas in the first place. In the notes before the weekend, when the driver otherwise pointed out special features, this time it was explicitly about the consequences for intentionally caused collisions. This immediately brought back memories of Michael Schumacher, who was subsequently completely deleted from the drivers’ standings after his ramming at the World Cup final against Jacques Villeneuve in 1997.
1:31 pm: Sebastian Vettel is also about to win an award today, and the poor starting position 15 can even be helpful. The Aston Martin driver leads this season’s new ranking for most overtaking maneuvers. Vettel comes to 127, the closest pursuer is Fernando Alonso with 125. Also in third place is a veteran, namely Kimi Räikkönen with 121. The 42-year-old Finn ends his career with today’s race. His 349th race start is a record in Formula 1.
1:28 pm: Mercedes Motorsport Director Toto Wolff sees his driver at an advantage despite second place on the grid. Because Verstappen has to drive off with the red soft tire, while Hamilton starts on the yellow medium. The softer tire brings better traction when the traffic lights go out, but it also degrades more quickly afterwards. Wolff is counting on Hamilton to keep up despite the harder tires and then benefit from the fact that Verstappen has to stop earlier. Whatever the risk of getting stuck in traffic further back in the field.
1:22 pm: Nikita Mazepin will not be there today. The Haas driver tested positive for the corona virus in the morning, as his racing team announced. However, substitute driver Pietro Fittipaldi is not allowed to use because he did not do any of the training sessions. Mick Schumacher’s starting position 19 is for once the last in the field.
1:15 p.m .: Such a crucial starting accident would not be a premiere in Formula 1. In the 1990 season, Ayrton Senna (McLaren) and Alain Prost (Ferrari) collided in the first corner of the Japanese Grand Prix because Senna gave in uncompromisingly. Both were eliminated, making Senna world champion. A year earlier it was exactly the other way around: Prost uncompromisingly turned against Senna, both cars came to a halt in the run-off zone. Because Senna allowed the marshals to push her on his return, he was disqualified at the end of the race – and Prost cheered for the title.
1:07 pm: The horror scenario at Mercedes is likely to be a start-up accident. “It makes no difference to him if we both don’t finish,” said Hamilton after the collision with Verstappen at the previous race in Saudi Arabia when the Dutchman let him up. Hamilton won despite a damaged front wing, but also knows that the moment he retires today, Verstappen is world champion.
1:03 pm: In yesterday’s qualifying, Verstappen surprisingly prevailed and secured the 13th pole position of his career. Hamilton, who was rated more strongly after the impressions of the free practice sessions, “only” finished second – and is therefore going into the season finale a few meters behind.
1:00 p.m .: Welcome to the live ticker for what is perhaps the most exciting decision in the 71-year history of Formula 1. In an hour, the lights will go out at the Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi. Then it will be decided whether Max Verstappen will be world champion for the first time – or he will be intercepted in the last race by Lewis Hamilton, who would crown himself the sole record champion with his eighth title.
The initial situation: Before the last race of the Formula 1 season, Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton are tied at 369.5 points. Half of the points come from the Belgian Grand Prix, which was canceled after three laps behind the safety car due to persistent rain. Red Bull driver Verstappen is leading because he has nine wins this season, Hamilton eight. If both World Cup rivals land outside of the points or are eliminated in Abu Dhabi, Verstappen is world champion. Of course, this also applies in the event that only Hamilton’s Mercedes does not make it to the finish line. His mission is clear: for the eighth title he has to see the black and white checkered flag before Verstappen and get at least one point more.